Roslovic scores in overtime as Blue Jackets beat Minnesota Wild 5-4
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Jack Roslovic scored 3:07 into overtime and the Columbus Blue Jackets beat the Minnesota Wild 5-4 on Saturday night.
Justin Danforth, Kent Johnson, Boone Jenner and Adam Fantilli also scored for the Blue Jackets. Elvis Merzlikins made 24 saves.
Entering the Minnesota zone, Roslovic split three Minnesota defenders and whistled a low shot past Filip Gustavsson for his first goal of the season.
“The way we played we deserved that win. We played really well, really connected, really intense,” said Columbus coach Pascal Vincent. “No game is perfect, we’re going to make mistakes, but the mindset was perfect. I’m looking for excellence and what I mean by excellence is working hard. We did that tonight.”
Four of the last five games between the teams took extra time with the Wild previously winning twice in overtime and once in a shootout.
Dakota Mermis, Mats Zuccarello, Jonas Brodin and Marcus Johansson scored for Minnesota, which got a career-high 49 saves from Gustavsson.
Johansson tied it at 4 with 2:59 left, about two minutes after Fantilli, the third overall pick in the 2023 Draft, scored his first career goal on the power play for a 4-3 Columbus lead.
“It’s every kid’s dream to get their first NHL goal. But to be honest, I was really happy with the way I was playing away from the puck as well to that point. I was just working hard, knew it would happen at some point,” said Fantilli, who had 30 goals and 35 assists in 36 games last year at the University of Michigan.
Minnesota thought it took a 4-3 lead on a power-play goal with 8:06 left, but Columbus successfully challenged the Wild was offside entering the zone.
“We have the screen behind the bench, and we saw right away it was pretty black and white,” Vincent said.
“Anything can happen in OT but I think it sucks that we got that power play goal called off. And they get a goal right after. We came back, we fought back, but at the end of the day they made it hard for us. And in our zone we weren’t good enough,” Zuccarello said.
Tied 2-all entering the third period, Brodin’s first goal of the season gave Minnesota its first lead, but Jenner answered about three minutes later for Columbus, converting off a flurry in front of the Wild net for his team-high fourth goal.
“I don’t think we wavered at all throughout the night,” Jenner said.
Danforth scored his second goal in as many games midway through the first period, poking in a rebound of his own shot for a 1-0 lead.
Playing their second game in as many days, the Blue Jackets had far more quality chances in the first 20 minutes, and it continued to start the second. Columbus had nine of the period’s first 10 shots, with Johnson scoring on a wrist shot off the draw at 6:10.
But Minnesota quickly responded with goals by Mermis and Zuccarello 54 seconds apart. Zuccarello has seven points in a career-best five-game point streak to start a season.
“We weren’t good defensively. We weren’t good in the game. We didn’t execute defensively. We didn’t execute getting out of our zone. So, yeah, we didn’t do a lot of good things in this game and yet we still had an opportunity in it, which was positive. But we’ve got to clean a lot of our hockey up,” said Wild coach Dean Evason
NO LAINE
Columbus LW Patrik Laine did not make the trip and is considered day to day after receiving an elbow to the head from Calgary D Rasmus Anderssson in the waning seconds of Friday’s game. On Saturday, the league suspended Andersson four games without pay. RW Mathieu Olivier was back in the Blue Jackets lineup after being a healthy scratch the past two games.
UP NEXT
Blue Jackets: Return home to face Anaheim on Tuesday.
Wild: Host Edmonton on Tuesday.
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